Book Notice. 135 



cimen in hand corresponds with that figured in the book and described 

 in the text. These three volumes have taken eight years to prepare, 

 and they have been produced with great care and at enormous cost, as 

 will he understood when the fact is stated that no fewer than 4162 

 species, including 81 in an appendix to the third volume, are described 

 and figured in them, \\iiile Bentham and Hooker's Handbook of the 

 British Flora embraces only 1309 species. Not more than one-fourth 

 of the plants described in this work have ever before been figured, and 

 whatever was previously done in this connection was onlj' in scattered 

 monographs or local collections. 



The first volume opens with a description of the Ferns and their 

 allies, the Fteridophyta, and the third volume ends with the Composite^. 

 This plan reverses the order of the older treatises in Botany, which 

 began with the higher forms of plant-life and concluded with the lower; 

 but it is undoubtedly the true scientific method to proceed from the 

 study of the simple to that of the more complex productions of the 

 earth, and the authors of this work have done wisely in following the 

 leadings of nature in this matter. Eugler and Prantl of Germany had 

 already led the way in this desirable reform. Britton and Brown have 

 also followed the lead of these German authors as to the divisions into 

 genera, greatly increasing their number, and correspondingly decreas- 

 ing the number of species and varieties ranged under them respectively. 

 It may be said that this is an arbitrary proceeding on the part of the 

 botanists of the day. But much of the distribution into genera and 

 species is largely matter of opinion as to what differences are to be 

 deemed determinative ; and this much may be said for the work before 

 us and its German prototype, that, in lessening the number of species 

 and varieties compared under one genus, it greatly facilitates the study 

 of specimens, and whatever contributes to that end is to be welcomed. 

 It is not without a feeling- of reluctance that those accustomed to use 

 Gray's " Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States " will 

 lay it aside in favour of this new work. No one familiar with the 

 "Manual "will ever cease to be grateful to its author. It has done 

 noble service. But science is progressive, and we must advance with 

 the times. 



The code of nomenclature adopted by the authors of this work is that 

 devised by the Paris Botanical Congress of 1867, modified by the rules 

 agreed upon by the Botanical Club of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science in 1892 and 1893, and published by the Torrey 

 Club in 1894. Starting with the "Species Plantarum " of Linnaeus, 

 published in 1753, priority is asserted as the fundamental law of nomen- 

 clature. Plants removed from one genus to another retain their 

 original specific name. A name already appropriated is not allowed to 

 be applied to another plant. Parentheses are employed to show where 

 a plant has been transferred from one genus to another. Specific names 



